Picturing Indigenous people

I brought back current events this year for a couple reasons.
1. Students struggle on state test questions that connect history to today. 
2. My experiences in Greece and Peru helped reignite my passion for global citizenship.

Igniting STUDENT excitement for current events, however, has been a struggle. My original goals were ambitious. Two days a month students would read an article in class and summarize. Then at the end of the semester, their best work would be added to a Global Mindset Portfolio. Unfortunately over 30% of students struggled to complete the first article summary. I adjusted the second article summary by curating light-hearted positive news with little improvement. For round three I addressed a gap in our curriculum. Wisconsin law requires that students learn about the native peoples of Wisconsin but I'll be the first to admit we do not do a thorough job with this content. 
Then I discovered Skawennati's TED talk. She is a First Nation's artist from Canada who uses new media to create space in her audience's minds to picture indigenous people in the future. One of her art projects is a digital paper doll who shares journal entries about events throughout history from 1400 to 2400. 

​Inspired by her vision, I found Newsela articles on a variety of topics that connected indigenous people solving problems today to the UN Sustainable Development Goals we are focusing on throughout the year. I streamlined the article summary to the bare minimum and asked students to create their own paper dolls and journal entries about their events.
At first a few groups struggled with the concept of regular people doing normal activities but through discussion I helped them understand that this was the exact point we were trying to understand.
Change agents are regular people who think of creative ways to improve their communities.
Furthermore, First Nations people are not just a part of history, they are part of our present and future.